Preeclampsia Doubles Women's Stroke Risk

Última actualización el Jueves, Enero 29, 2015

The estimated 7 million women in the United States today who experienced a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy should be aware of new guidelines for preventing stroke in women from the American Stroke Association and American Heart Association. We have known for many years that a history of preeclampsia during pregnancy puts women at greater risk for future high blood pressure, but continuing research shows that the impact may extend to stroke risk as well.

In the U.S., stroke is now more common in women than men, with more than half of the 795,000 strokes that occur each year happening to women. The disease is also more deadly in women, with about 60 percent of stroke deaths happening in female patients.

"Guidelines for the Prevention of Stroke in Women - A Statement for Healthcare Professionals" from the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association were issued last week. These first-time-ever guidelines, similar to a 2011 publication by the American Heart Association, declared preeclampsia as a significant risk factor for heart disease and stroke. This paper suggested preeclampsia survivors have double the risk of having a stroke and those who developed preeclampsia before 32 weeks, a five-fold increased risk, over women with normal pregnancies.

The guidelines went even farther to recommend interventions to prevent preeclampsia, in the hopes that improved pregnancy outcomes would lower a woman’s risk of stroke. Low dose aspirin and calcium were suggested. [see Box 1] In other research, both of these interventions get mixed reviews, although the former has now been included in the 2013 Hypertension in Pregnancy Guidelines issued by the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists. Other research studies on calcium have only found an effect in populations that are calcium-deficient, generally not a problem in the U.S.

Nonetheless, an important part of the conclusions were the recommended follow up actions (see Box 2) which include evaluation and treatment of risk factors as soon as six months after delivery. The ASA guidelines recommend that women with a history of preeclampsia be screened and treated for high blood pressure, obesity, smoking and high cholesterol to reduce their risk for stroke.“Until recently, medical fields outside the obstetrical community were less familiar with complications in pregnancy and with the ongoing risks after pregnancy. The recent report represents a landmark in efforts to increase awareness of risks for brain injury among all providers well beyond the obstetrical community,” said Dr. Thomas Easterling, Medical Board Director for the Preeclampsia Foundation. Similar to other recently released guidelines, all healthcare providers are encouraged to fully appreciate the risks of brain injury to women with preeclampsia and to practice strategies to prevent them. The most common themes in all the guidelines include:

Early identification of risk

Prevention of seizures (eclampsia)

Control of blood pressure

Delivery when the magnitude of maternal risk exceeds the interests of the fetus in-utero

Aggressive postpartum management of fluid status and hypertension

Surveillance and risk intervention among women affected by preeclampsia as they age

"As advocates for women's health and especially for greater awareness of preeclampsia, we applaud this expression of heightened concern and hope this will lead to much needed research into the cause of preeclampsia and novel treatments," said Eleni Tsigas, Executive Director of the Preeclampsia Foundation. "We are working with a small, but growing body of healthcare providers interested in improving long-term health outcomes for preeclampsia survivors."

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Collection of personally identifiable informationThe Preeclampsia Foundation may collect names, email addresses and other personally identifiable data about visitors when such data is voluntarily submitted to preeclampsia.org. For example, our site uses forms for visitors to register or make a donation online. Contact information from these forms is used to send information about preeclampsia or Foundation activity to our visitors. Financial information is used to bill or provide receipts to visitors in connection with their donations. To ensure the security of credit card and personal information, this Web site employs industry-standard security methods, including the Secure Socket Layers (SSL) protocol for the encryption of transmitted data. The Preeclampsia Foundation goes to great lengths to protect the confidentiality and integrity of any personal information you share with us over the Internet. In instances where we may partner with medical organizations to conduct research on preeclampsia, your participation may be expressly requested, but your permission would be required prior to sharing personally identifiable data with authorized medical organizations.

The Preeclampsia Foundation makes every effort to ensure the secure collection and transmission of sensitive user information using industry accepted data collection and encryption methodologies.

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Should you wish to review or make corrections to your personal information, please click Login/Join at the top of the page and enter your login information. A page titled "Edit Your Details" will appear in the main body of the page where you can view and make corrections. If you wish to be removed entirely from our database, please email info@preeclampsia.org.

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Privacy Policy

Normal web site usageThe Preeclampsia Foundation has a firm commitment to Internet privacy. You can visit most portions of preeclampsia.org without telling us who you are and without revealing any personal information. The only information we collect from a normal web site visit is the name of your Internet Service Provider, the browser and type of machine you are using, the web site that referred you to us, the pages you request and the date and time you request them. We use this information to generate statistics and measure site activity to improve the usefulness of the site to our visitors.

Collection of personally identifiable informationThe Preeclampsia Foundation may collect names, email addresses and other personally identifiable data about visitors when such data is voluntarily submitted to preeclampsia.org. For example, our site uses forms for visitors to register or make a donation online. Contact information from these forms is used to send information about preeclampsia or Foundation activity to our visitors. Financial information is used to bill or provide receipts to visitors in connection with their donations. To ensure the security of credit card and personal information, this Web site employs industry-standard security methods, including the Secure Socket Layers (SSL) protocol for the encryption of transmitted data. The Preeclampsia Foundation goes to great lengths to protect the confidentiality and integrity of any personal information you share with us over the Internet. In instances where we may partner with medical organizations to conduct research on preeclampsia, your participation may be expressly requested, but your permission would be required prior to sharing personally identifiable data with authorized medical organizations.

The Preeclampsia Foundation makes every effort to ensure the secure collection and transmission of sensitive user information using industry accepted data collection and encryption methodologies.

Donor Privacy PolicyThe Preeclampsia Foundation does not sell or otherwise disclose user information outside the organization. We will not sell, trade or share a donor's personal information with anyone else, nor send donor mailings on behalf of other organizations.

Should you wish to review or make corrections to your personal information, please click Login/Join at the top of the page and enter your login information. A page titled "Edit Your Details" will appear in the main body of the page where you can view and make corrections. If you wish to be removed entirely from our database, please email info@preeclampsia.org.

CookiesWe do not use cookies on the majority of our website pages. The donate pages do use "per session" cookies. Per session cookies last only for the life of your current browser load and use no permanent storage on your hard drive. The use of per session cookies is very common in modern Web sites.